Gett, a new black car player in New York City that has thus far been operating in European and Israeli cities, publicly accused Uber of conducting what it described as a physical denial-of-service attack

Quote:

Uber did pay cancellation fees for these requests

If DOS attacks always generated income for the victim the internet would be a lot more interesting place.

Last weekend an Uber driver, with a fare, blared its horn at a vehicle not making a right-turn that was allowing my girlfriend and I to walk across the street while we had the right of way. When I gave the Uber driver an understandable "really? did you just encourage someone to run us over?" look he yelled "Go Seahawk's!" out the window and drove off as his fare, wide-eyed, looked at one another. I was wearing 49er gear in San Francisco coming home from having watched the NFC Championship game, so imagine my bemusement.

The point of the story is that this type of behavior was such I'd previously associated only with traditional cab drivers in the city. Up until that point my experiences with Uber was that they tend to be a bit more classy than this.

Recruiting anyone and everyone is a bold strategy. We'll see how that plays out for them.

I don't see how this is bad for Gett. They claim that none of their drivers switched to Uber and Uber paid them cancel to orders. And it sounds like the orders were canceled as soon as they got the phone numbers so the drivers didn't have to go anywhere.

I can't find out how much the fee is but I doubt it is pennies for 200+ rides.

Uber tries to paint it as some kind of underdog but in fact is actually quite dirty. They try to flout the law as much as possible. This does not suprise me at all.

It's always interesting to see new, smarter ways of doing business, and internet-based dispatch is cool. But now that we've had some time to see them in action, I really dislike what they are doing. Their peak pricing in the long run is bad for consumers. They argue it's the only way to keep drivers on the road, but taxi regulation works just as well without gouging.

Of course it would be better if we just had great mass transit to fall back on, but the US is horrible at that.....

Not being on duty isn't a valid excuse. Taxi companies have to vet their drivers for their driving record and professionalism and they must have commercial licenses. The standards for Uber drivers are probably a bit lower.

Last weekend an Uber driver, with a fare, blared its horn at a vehicle not making a right-turn that was allowing my girlfriend and I to walk across the street while we had the right of way. When I gave the Uber driver an understandable "really? did you just encourage someone to run us over?" look he yelled "Go Seahawk's!" out the window and drove off as his fare, wide-eyed, looked at one another. I was wearing 49er gear in San Francisco coming home from having watched the NFC Championship game, so imagine my bemusement.

The point of the story is that this type of behavior was such I'd previously associated only with traditional cab drivers in the city. Up until that point my experiences with Uber was that they tend to be a bit more classy than this.

Recruiting anyone and everyone is a bold strategy. We'll see how that plays out for them.

I was just in San Francisco and used Uber for the first time. Worked flawlessly at 430 am for a trip to the airport. Saved me from calling or looking for a cab. Great car and great driver.

That said,the Uber driver told me that he estimates at least 20% of Uber drivers used to be yellow cab drivers. So that might explain the cabby-esque experience you had.

Last weekend an Uber driver, with a fare, blared its horn at a vehicle not making a right-turn that was allowing my girlfriend and I to walk across the street while we had the right of way. When I gave the Uber driver an understandable "really? did you just encourage someone to run us over?" look he yelled "Go Seahawk's!" out the window and drove off as his fare, wide-eyed, looked at one another. I was wearing 49er gear in San Francisco coming home from having watched the NFC Championship game, so imagine my bemusement.

The point of the story is that this type of behavior was such I'd previously associated only with traditional cab drivers in the city. Up until that point my experiences with Uber was that they tend to be a bit more classy than this.

Recruiting anyone and everyone is a bold strategy. We'll see how that plays out for them.

What specifically tipped you off that the driver in your encounter worked for uber?

Last weekend an Uber driver, with a fare, blared its horn at a vehicle not making a right-turn that was allowing my girlfriend and I to walk across the street while we had the right of way. When I gave the Uber driver an understandable "really? did you just encourage someone to run us over?" look he yelled "Go Seahawk's!" out the window and drove off as his fare, wide-eyed, looked at one another. I was wearing 49er gear in San Francisco coming home from having watched the NFC Championship game, so imagine my bemusement.

The point of the story is that this type of behavior was such I'd previously associated only with traditional cab drivers in the city. Up until that point my experiences with Uber was that they tend to be a bit more classy than this.

Recruiting anyone and everyone is a bold strategy. We'll see how that plays out for them.

What specifically tipped you off that the driver in your encounter worked for uber?

Their black UberSUV's are fairly distinctive. Uber's cellphone app is one I've made use of in the past to get about the city. I'll admit I did not whip out my phone and immediately pull up the map of local Uber vehicles, but I'm unaware of many, if any, competing services running the same SUV models as Uber at the moment.

Fair point. Being first often beats being correct. And statistically, collisions are bound to happen sooner or later anyway for any taxi or taxi-like service, regulation or no.

Very true, having a commercial license, or hundreds of hours of driving training will not prevent all incidents. So one event such as this is a sad tragedy, but does not suggest that Uber (or similar services) have more problems with driver incidents than any other form of hired car service. That information needs to come from properly run studies over long periods with good statistical analysis.

... Their peak pricing in the long run is bad for consumers. They argue it's the only way to keep drivers on the road, but taxi regulation works just as well without gouging...

Nonsense. Peak pricing is a step in the right direction for correctly matching up taxis and their customers. You want to spend your time instead of money - go ahead and go the traditional taxi route or find alternative transportation means.

When I read about "surge pricing" it makes it clear to me that they needed to be regulated as taxi companies for exactly the same reasons Taxis are. That's precisely the kind of activity that made taxi regulation a necessity. They just made the case that they're no different, and in fact are worse.

[quote="another ars account"Off-duty? "Uber officials said he did not have a passenger in his car at the time of the collision." If he was off-duty, I think they'd have said so.

"Legal expert Steven Clark told NBC Bay Area that a court could still hold Uber responsible." ... which also seems implausible if he was off duty.[/quote]

"Off-duty" is a kind of amorphous concept for a service like Uber. If he's out driving in an area where he is likely to get a fare, waiting for a call, but he hasn't received call yet, is he on or off duty?

Last weekend an Uber driver, with a fare, blared its horn at a vehicle not making a right-turn that was allowing my girlfriend and I to walk across the street while we had the right of way. When I gave the Uber driver an understandable "really? did you just encourage someone to run us over?" look he yelled "Go Seahawk's!" out the window and drove off as his fare, wide-eyed, looked at one another. I was wearing 49er gear in San Francisco coming home from having watched the NFC Championship game, so imagine my bemusement.

The point of the story is that this type of behavior was such I'd previously associated only with traditional cab drivers in the city. Up until that point my experiences with Uber was that they tend to be a bit more classy than this.

Recruiting anyone and everyone is a bold strategy. We'll see how that plays out for them.

This is the trouble with the UberX concept, which, while laudable as significantly cheaper than a traditional black car, also tends to attract people who think driving people around is something that could be fun, rather than a difficult job that requires professional behavior at all times. There doesn't currently seem to be a way to report this kind of action, beyond e.g. calling 311, but that feedback loop needs to be closed to make sure this doesn't degenerate into the kind of terrible minicab service I recall from the UK in the 90s.

It's possible that you were referring to a black car driver - although the difference between a black car (read: beat up old Lincoln) and an UberX is merely a matter of legroom most of the time.

This is the trouble with the UberX concept, which, while laudable as significantly cheaper than a traditional black car, also tends to attract people who think driving people around is something that could be fun, rather than a difficult job that requires professional behavior at all times.

Last weekend an Uber driver, with a fare, blared its horn at a vehicle not making a right-turn that was allowing my girlfriend and I to walk across the street while we had the right of way. When I gave the Uber driver an understandable "really? did you just encourage someone to run us over?" look he yelled "Go Seahawk's!" out the window and drove off as his fare, wide-eyed, looked at one another. I was wearing 49er gear in San Francisco coming home from having watched the NFC Championship game, so imagine my bemusement.

The point of the story is that this type of behavior was such I'd previously associated only with traditional cab drivers in the city. Up until that point my experiences with Uber was that they tend to be a bit more classy than this.

Recruiting anyone and everyone is a bold strategy. We'll see how that plays out for them.

So to summarise: This just in - some people are assholes. What a surprise huh

I heard about their surge pricing on NPR earlier this week - being a suburbanite, I just find the practice scummy but I'll acknowledge I might feel differently if I lived NYC. The employee poaching is scummy regardless of market.

Drivers will want to avoid being caught in a monosomy (a single buyer of their services/labor). So if Uber becomes the only game in town for black car drivers, then Uber will eat more and more of their income and they become de-facto low wage employees, even while they bear all the costs of operations.

Some computer service referral systems tried to do that until the rates go so cheap anyone with talent left them.

Last weekend an Uber driver, with a fare, blared its horn at a vehicle not making a right-turn that was allowing my girlfriend and I to walk across the street while we had the right of way. When I gave the Uber driver an understandable "really? did you just encourage someone to run us over?" look he yelled "Go Seahawk's!" out the window and drove off as his fare, wide-eyed, looked at one another. I was wearing 49er gear in San Francisco coming home from having watched the NFC Championship game, so imagine my bemusement.

The point of the story is that this type of behavior was such I'd previously associated only with traditional cab drivers in the city. Up until that point my experiences with Uber was that they tend to be a bit more classy than this.

Recruiting anyone and everyone is a bold strategy. We'll see how that plays out for them.

This sounds like any other interaction in a city street. Why would Uber be held to a higher standard than any other person delivery service? Because they give you water bottles they must treat you better than the cabbies? No bro, they're still cabbies.

I think a one or two sentence description of what "the black car sector" actually is would be useful in the article. It's by no means a universally understood term, especially in cities where none of these companies operate.

... Their peak pricing in the long run is bad for consumers. They argue it's the only way to keep drivers on the road, but taxi regulation works just as well without gouging...

Nonsense. Peak pricing is a step in the right direction for correctly matching up taxis and their customers. You want to spend your time instead of money - go ahead and go the traditional taxi route or find alternative transportation means.

I heard about their surge pricing on NPR earlier this week - being a suburbanite, I just find the practice scummy but I'll acknowledge I might feel differently if I lived NYC.

I have to admit I am old enough that I like the idea that a service exists where I can be certain of getting a cab, but it'll cost me rather than being told "it's raining and you want a cab? Ha ha ha"

I understand that many will want the certainty of price, even if it means waiting hours for a cab, but the idea that it is unethical that *anyone* allow me the option not to wait (at cost) strikes me as odd.